Saturday, 16 February 2013

Building Borborygmos Enraged

Everyone thinks Borborygmos is just an angry cyclops, but they are wrong. He isn’t angry, he is just upset and misunderstood. All he wants is to make works of art by throwing dirt, rocks, trees and the carcasses of his enemies around, using the world as his canvas. But then people decided to come and taunt him, making him upset, angry, enraged. Now Borbor is Angry, and Angry Borbor will destroy you.

And so goes the story of Borborygmos Enraged.

When I first saw the Borborygmos Enraged spoiler, I knew I would be making a deck around him. I could finally make and aggro loam deck in EDH, and Borborygmos is the king. This is a guide to my thought process while making this deck. I didn’t want to just post a deck list and description of how the deck works, but explain what I was thinking when I built the deck, and why I considered certain cards, even ones I eventually cut. I hope this will lead to people trying to make similar decks but taking them in their own direction, though if you like my final deck list, by all means build it and play it. deck list My initially looked into Aggro Loam decks in Legacy, and to an extent, Modern. Aggro Loam is a deck that utilises Life From the Loam and Seismic Assault to kill your opponent. You start by getting some lands in your graveyard, cast Life From the Loam getting back any two lands and a cycle land. You cycle the cycling land, replacing the draw with dredge and do it again. Countryside Crusher is used as another win condition as in a deck that is discarding lands, he can grow massively. The deck is good at using and getting back utility lands like Wasteland to punish players with greedy mana bases and Grove of the Burnwillows to set up Punishing Fire combo.

I came up with two ideas for how to best use Borborygmos, the first would be with a lot of card draw and a lot of lands, around 60, to discard, and to best make use of his ‘mulch’ ability when he deals combat damage. This is what I tested initially. The other option was to use Borborygmos as a finisher, concentrating on ramp and getting lands into my hand by other means, by spells or from the

graveyard and battlefield, instead of just drawing into them. First I will talk about

the strategies that are used in both styles of decks.

Aggro Loam in EDH

I started off brainstorming how I could transfer this to EDH. The first obvious inclusions were Life From the Loam, the red and green cycling lands, Countryside Crusher, and some utility lands. I also considered Seismic Assault, but with Borborygmos as your commander, it’s probably not needed.

There are some other cards that are obvious inclusions to a deck that will be both playing and discarding a lot of lands. Crucible of Worlds is a fairly obvious choice, letting you ditch lands to Borborygmos then play them again. Any green deck with lots of lands can benefit from Avenger of Zendikar and his army of tokens, and this one is no different. Its a nice alternate win condition of Borborygmos gets killed too many times.

Card draw

Instead of using cycling lands to dredge Life From the Loam, you can use any other form of card draw. Since Borborygmos deals damage each time you discard, you can enchant him with Snake Umbra or Keen Sense, and replace the draw from that with dredge getting a lot of value out of each Life From the Loam, allowing you to get 9 damage and two cards out of each loam. Using Snake Umbra or Keen Sense alongside Abundance will let you replace drawing your card with drawing a land instead, allowing your to deal 3 damage for each land left in your library. If you empty your library of lands in this way, due to the way Abundance works, the last time you would draw a land card, if there are no cards left, you can re-order your library in any way you like!

Sylvan Library is arguable the best card draw available in green. It lets you choose which card to draw, and draw more at the cost of extra life. It also has a nice interaction with abundance, in that Abundance doesn’t ‘draw’ you a card, it just puts it into your hand. This means you can replace all three draws from Sylvan Library with Abundance, and not pay any life (as you didn't ‘draw’ any cards).

Wheel effects (such as Wheel of Fortune) are some of the most powerful draw effects, allowing you to draw a new hand, (though they are also symmetrical so you need to be wary of refilling your opponents hands too) and will let your refill your hand with more lands to discard with Borborygmos. Wheel of Fortune allows you to draw a new hand at sorcery speed. Dragon Mage lets you draw a new hand whenever it deals combat damage, hopefully every turn. The most powerful however, is Knollspine Dragon. Ditch a bunch of lands, attack, then cast your dragon and refill your hand. Its not unusual to draw 20+ cards from this. Most importantly, its a ‘may’ ability so if you haven't dealt any damage and really need a creature, you can cast Knollspine Dragon without ditching your hand for nothing.

After ditching a lot of lands, you need to get them back in your hand to do it again. Getting lands back from the graveyard is easy. Besides Life From the Loam, there is Creeping Renaissance, Preators Council, Groundskeeper, Tilling Treefolk, and various other cards. Creeping Renaissance and Preators Council are amazing in a deck like this. They allow you to discard lands over time, then get them all back at once and often kill one of more opponents at once.

Dredge

Your graveyard is a great resource, and if you can fill it with lands to return with one of the aforementioned cards you can often have an explosive finish. Life From the Loam is a great little card to return lands to your hand, and help fill your graveyard with more lands when you dredge it. I tested Golgari Grave-Troll as a secondary option for filling your graveyard, with he wasn’t very useful except to fill your graveyard, and it was difficult to reliably get him into your graveyard.

The 60 Land Special

Playing 60+ lands

The problem with playing a lot of lands is you are still limited to how many lands you can play a turn, so unless you have a way of using all the lands you can each turn, playing too many lands is not a good idea. Luckily, Borborygmos gives you something awesome to do with extra lands - throw them at your opponents faces. There are many creatures and enchantments to utilise in the early turns to not waste the lands in your hand as well. Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya both let your play extra lands each turn, and you can tutor for them easily. Burgeoning and Exploration are two enchantments that let you get extra lands into play. Between these, you can ramp to 8 to play Borborygmos really quickly, and the abundance of lands is never wasted as you can discard them to your general. Plus, with such a high density of lands, every time you connected with Borborygmos, you were likely to get at least 2 lands into your hand to ditch to Borborygmos. Lotus Cobra is amazing in a deck that aims to play 2-5 lands each turn, and can lead to some insanely fast starts. With a full set up fetches as well, Lotus Cobra has proved to be a very good creature in lands based deck.

With 60+ lands, you really need to be drawing a bunch of cards to make sure you have more to do each turn than attack and throw a land with your general. Alongside the enchantments mentioned above, and the wheel effects, I decided to run some artifact card draw. For 6 mana, Staff of Nin will draw you an extra card each turn. For less, there is Font of Mythos and Howling Mine to draw a lot more cards. These cards are fairly political in that other players often won’t try to destroy them straight away because they get the symmetrical effects themselves. With any symmetrical effect, you should always be playing them if you will hopefully be getting more out of the effect than your opponent. In a deck where every land is a Lightning Bolt with your general out, and you can recur them or draw lots in one turn, playing symmetrical card draw is not a big problem. It speeds the game up a lot and will often be the cause behind why a game ends just by giving all players so many options by giving them more cards than they otherwise would have had. This deck can also ramp very fast meaning that you can take full advantage of drawing into lots of non-land cards, whereas other decks will be limited in how many spells they can play, unless they too have ramped to a lot of mana quickly.

Horn of Greed is another symmetrical draw spell, but since we will always have lands in our hand, and normally be able to play multiple lands each turn, we will almost always be getting more value out of it than our opponents.

60 Land Special deck list.

Land (60)

1x Ancient Tomb

1x Arid Mesa

1x Bloodstained Mire

1x Buried Ruin

1x City of Brass

1x Dust Bowl

1x Fire-Lit Thicket

12x Forest

1x Forgotten Cave

1x Gaea's Cradle

1x Glacial Chasm

1x Haunted Fengraf

1x Hellion Crucible

1x High Market

1x Homeward Path

1x Kessig Wolf Run

1x Maze of Ith

1x Miren, the Moaning Well

1x Misty Rainforest

1x Mosswort Bridge

9x Mountain

1x Mystifying Maze

1x Raging Ravine

1x Reliquary Tower

1x Rootbound Crag

1x Scalding Tarn

1x Smoldering Crater

1x Spinerock Knoll

1x Stomping Ground

1x Strip Mine

1x Tectonic Edge

1x Temple of the False God

1x Thespian's Stage

1x Tranquil Thicket

1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

1x Verdant Catacombs

1x Vesuva

1x Wasteland

1x Winding Canyons

1x Windswept Heath

1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (12)

1x Avenger of Zendikar

1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking

1x Countryside Crusher

1x Dragon Mage

1x Eternal Witness

1x Fa'adiyah Seer

1x Groundskeeper

1x Knollspine Dragon

1x Lotus Cobra

1x Oracle of Mul Daya

1x Tilling Treefolk

1x Yavimaya Elder

Enchantment (5)

1x Abundance

1x Burgeoning

1x Exploration

1x Keen Sense

1x Snake Umbra

Instant (4)

1x Chord of Calling

1x Crop Rotation

1x Krosan Grip

1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (11)

1x Creeping Renaissance

1x Cultivate

1x Explosive Vegetation

1x Green Sun's Zenith

1x Harmonize

1x Kodama's Reach

1x Life from the Loam

1x Praetor's Counsel

1x Seek the Horizon

1x Sylvan Tutor

1x Wheel of Fortune

Artifact (7)

1x Crucible of Worlds

1x Font of Mythos

1x Horn of Greed

1x Howling Mine

1x Sol Ring

1x Staff of Nin

1x Storm Cauldron

This deck is very fun to play, but it is very reliant on the general, and drawing into some of the key spells. While drawing a bolt every turn, and probably more with the wheel effects and extra card draw, in larger games it is very rarely going to be enough to kill a table, while being enough to paint a target on your back. This deck relies on drawing into some of the big spells to end games (Abundance, Keen Sense, Praetors Council) though sometimes a few attacks with Borborygmos, Kessig Wolf Run and discarding a hand of lands will be enough. I wanted to try a different approach to try and make a more consistent deck with less lands.

Borborygmos V.2, Not Just a One-Trick Pony

The 60 lands Borborygmos deck was a blast to play, but it was very inconsistent. When you drew into some of the key spells, such as abundance, Keen Sense, or Snake Umbra, it often meant the game would end very soon. However, it was very reliant on the general. While the deck was capable of ramping very quick and casting him multiple times, fighting through counterspells and targeted removal was often hard, and it was near impossible to fight through cards such as Humility and Pithing Needle. Giving you opponents a lot of lands through Font of Mythos and Howling Mine sped game up a lot, but it also often gave your opponents more answers for Borborygmos, and while it did often lead to some ammo for Borborygmos and let you dig through your deck for some of the more game ending spells, I decided to cut them instead to make the deck more consistent instead of hoping to draw into something powerful.

While there is nothing wrong with play a lot of lands, I decided that I would rather focus on getting lands into my hand from my graveyard or from play, rather than play a lot of lands and draw into them. Obviously you are limited to playing only 1 lands per turn without other effects, and while I did make it my mission to tutor for Azusa and Oracle of Mul Daya as soon as possible each game, as well as Burgeoning or Exploration, you are too often left with a lot of lands in hand and nothing to do. This is especially true late game, if Borborygmos has died a few times. While it did mean whenever he dealt damage, there was a much higher chance of getting 3 lands to deal 9 extra damage, and it made Borborygmos + Snake Umbra or Keen Sense extremely powerful, I decided to cut the number of lands and add in more action cards.

Alternate Win-Conditions

The deck also needed other ways to win. Valakut could do a bit of damage, Avenger was a threat, but often met removal, and while Countryside Crusher was decent if he stuck around, he often died before he could damage anyone. The first change I made was to take out some lands and add in some spells. I needed an alternate win condition, so I added Scapeshift and Prismatic Omen. These two can often end the game by searching for Valakut and bunch of mountains, but also can search for utility lands, fill your graveyard, and fix your mana. I also severely cut the number of Utility lands and completely cut the fetches, as I needed scapeshift to be useful without Prismatic Omen. My mana I added Ullamog instead as a huge threat and alternate win condition, as well as Sylvan Primordial, who is a threat, ramp, and removal all in one.

Ramp

I experimented with the ramp package now that there are less lands to fully abuse Azusa, Burgeoning and Exploration. Exploration is a lot worse with less lands, especially as it cannot be tutored for in this deck, but it can lead to an insane first few turns, or being able to recover after any form of land destruction. Burgeoning was left in as it can also lead to explosive starts, and has a neat interaction with Valakut and Cloudstone Curio which I also added. I and added in artifact ramp in the form of Thran Dynamo and Khalni Gem to help combat having less lands, though ramping to 8 still doesn’t take long. Khalni Gem has the added bonus of being useful late game picking up two lands to discard to Borborygmos. Mana Reflection was added now that there are less lands as another way to get a lot of mana while keeping as many lands in hand as possible. Lotus Cobra is not nearly as powerful with less lands to abuse with Azusa, and no fetch lands. I absolutely love the card, and it is very good at ramping while not being a big target for opponents, so I left it in.

Reusing Lands and Recursion

To get lands back from play, there are cards like Barrel-Down Sokenzu, Storm Cauldron, and Cloudstone Curio. While Barrel-Down Sokenzu looks useful on paper, I always ended up cutting it in my testing. It wasn’t powerful enough, and if someone killed Borborygmos in response, you were left in a bad position.. Storm Cauldron Is incredible as well, especially if you have Azusa or Oracle of Mul Daya out, or lots of artifact ramp. It really hinders your opponents play, but it lets you pick up lands and ditch them as you need. Cloudstone Curio turns your late game ramp spells into treats as you can bounce lands back to your hand instead of putting them on the battlefield. It occasionally leads to a bit of ramp when combined with Azusa when you only have 1 land in hand which is nice, and it has a sweet interaction with Valakut, letting you pick up mountains and replace them to continue dealing damage. You can also get extra value out of Howling Mine, especially if you want to keep a land in hand for Borbor. I also added Sprouting Vines to help me get some lands into my hand. Sometime you can wait for an opponent to play a lot of spells on their turn, play Sprouting Vines and get 5+ lands in your hand, but sometimes it just gets you one or two. I added Regrowth and Recollect for some extra non-land recursion, though you can just get lands back if that's what you need at the time.This is especially helpful if you dredge a card you need, or discard it to a Wheel effect, or even just to get back creature and enchantments that have been destroyed. It gives the deck some recursion for non-land cards.

Punishing Fire

I also decided to add in Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows, as used in legacy agro loam decks. There are so many generals and utility creatures that this combo of cards can kill. Dealing 4 damage to a creature every other turn for 5 mana is quite powerful, and every once in a while you can kill off an opponent with it.

Other Additions

Kiki-Jiki is amazing at abusing creatures with enter the battlefield effects. While there are only a few creatures with enter the battlefield effects, the ones I am using are all extremely useful, and getting a second copy each turn is very powerful. It also allows you to copy Avenger of Zendikar or one of the dragons for an extra beater.

Mana Geyser has been amazing in certain games, particularly 4+ player games, often netting 10+ mana and letting you cast an insane amount of spells, often unexpectedly.

Mindclaw Shaman is a pet card of mine, I just love to gamble on getting a decent spell from an opponent.

Vexing Shusher was added to combat control decks, though it is often useless in certain match ups.

Acidic Slime is a multipurpose utility creature, and should be in most green decks

Vandalblast is an artifact sweeper to destroy all your opponents problem artifacts. Its normally cast for its overload cost, but sometimes you can just cast it for R to get rid of one problem artifact.

Hull Breach is another multi-purpose removal spell to get rid of an enchantment, artifact or both.

Genesis is creature recursion, and now that there are more creatures in the deck, it is very useful to get dead creatures back to your hand.

Leyline of Lifeforce helps yo counter control, making sure your general will always get cast. It's probably not necisary if you are also playing Vexing Shusher and Cavern of Souls unless you are expecting a lot of control decks.

Asceticism is a great way to protect your creatures form targeted removal and regenerate them before combat or in response to a sweeper.

Through testing the deck, I found some neat interactions. Cloudstone Curio can often win games with a Valakut online by bouncing and replaying mountains. It can also let you get more mana if you can play more than one land a turn, and only have one in hand.

Countryside Crusher and Oracle of Mul Daya both work well with Abundance, as you will know the top card of your library before you chose whether to get a land card or non-land card instead of your draw for the turn. This means you can choose to pick the card on top if you need it, and choose whichever type it isn’t if you don’t.

The final decklist I am playing with now looks something like this:

Land (38)

1x Cavern of Souls1x Fire-Lit Thicket

10x Forest

1x Forgotten Cave

1x Gaea's Cradle

1x Grove of the Burnwillows

1x Homeward Path

1x Kessig Wolf Run

8x Mountain

1x Raging Ravine

1x Reliquary Tower

1x Rootbound Crag

1x Smoldering Crater

1x Spinerock Knoll

1x Stomping Ground

1x Strip Mine

1x Temple of the False God

1x Thespian's Stage

1x Tranquil Thicket

1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

1x Vesuva

1x Wasteland

Instant (7)

1x Beast Within

1x Chord of Calling

1x Crop Rotation

1x Krosan Grip

1x Punishing Fire

1x Sprouting Vines

1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (17)

1x Creeping Renaissance

1x Cultivate

1x Explosive Vegetation

1x Farseek

1x Green Sun's Zenith

1x Harmonize

1x Hull Breach

1x Kodama's Reach

1x Life from the Loam

1x Mana Geyser

1x Praetor's Counsel

1x Regrowth

1x Scapeshift

1x Seek the Horizon

1x Sylvan Scrying

1x Sylvan Tutor

1x Wheel of Fortune

Creature (18)

1x Acidic Slime

1x Avenger of Zendikar

1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking

1x Countryside Crusher

1x Dragon Mage

1x Eternal Witness

1x Genesis

1x Groundskeeper

1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1x Knollspine Dragon

1x Lotus Cobra

1x Mindclaw Shaman

1x Oracle of Mul Daya

1x Sylvan Primordial

1x Tilling Treefolk

1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

1x Vexing Shusher

1x Yavimaya Elder

Artifact (9)

1x Cloudstone Curio

1x Crucible of Worlds

1x Horn of Greed

1x Khalni Gem

1x Lightning Greaves

1x Sol Ring

1x Staff of Nin

1x Storm Cauldron

1x Thran Dynamo

Enchantment (10)

1x Abundance

1x Asceticism

1x Burgeoning

1x Furnace of Rath

1x Gratuitous Violence

1x Keen Sense

1x Leyline of Lifeforce

1x Mana Reflection

1x Prismatic Omen

1x Snake Umbra

Review of the decks

A lot of players do not like symmetrical effects as they feel like they are giving their opponents an advantage and a lot more card choice. This was also my number one reason to building my second Borborygmos deck, utilising different strategies to not give you opponents as much card draw. This initial deck list is more ‘casual’ and inconsistent than the second list.

While testing the second deck, it is also pretty reliant on Borborygmos, but there are now some alternate win conditions, even though there are enough tutors to get him back if he gets tucked, and enough ramp to get him out if he dies. The deck can still be pretty explosive, and take out opponents in one turn without them seeing it coming.

The second deck is a lot more consistent than the first, but it also means you don’t get as much value from Borborygmos’s combat damage ability, or cards like Snake Umbra and Keen Sense.

The decks both really needs to get to 8-10 mana, which isn’t difficult most of the time, but it also stops the decks from being super competitive. The second list is a lot more competitive than the first, and can definitely hold its own in most match-ups, but don’t expect to sit with Imperial Animar, Oath of Druids combo, and Arcum Dagsson, and not have to work extremely hard to compete. I’m sure there is work to be done on both lists still, and I will probably continue to optimise the second list, as its such a blast to play.

Changes you could make

There is room in both lists to make a lot of changes to fit your play style, budget, or cards that work well in your meta. In my second list, I have a few slots dedicated to artifact removal and anti-counter spells that protect this decks weaknesses (control, Pithing Needle) and are good against decks I often play against, that could definitely be changed to any other cards. Either Vexing Shusher or Leyline of Lifeforce should probably be taken out in place of something more useful, but the people I play with most often currently all love their control decks so I've needed both of them.
Punishing Fire has been great in this deck for me, though it might not be great in all meta's. If you are playing in an unknown meta, then I strongly suggest leaving it in, but if you know the decks you are playing against then replace it with whatever you think works better.
Gaea's Cradle is pricey, and its not even super powerful in this deck as there are very few creatures. If you can't afford it, it is definitely NOT essential to the deck.
Mindclaw Shaman is just a card that I love, but its also probably the weakest card in the deck as sometimes it does very little.
There isn't any graveyard hate in this deck which sometimes is an issue, and if you are expecting any graveyard-centric decks then definitely look into adding some. It is probably what I will be adding next.

Cards to Consider
Hermit Druid is a very powerful creature in a deck like this. It can fill your graveyard with lands and spells to recur, and it gets you an extra basic land each turn. It is often associated with degeneracy due to its use in powerful combo's, so it might paint a target on your head if you play him. I tested him briefly, and players often assumed it was going to be used in a combo so he was removed on sight and I was enemy number one after playing him. Feel free to test him yourself, you may get different results.
I'm not playing any Planeswalkers myself, but there is definitely room for them in this deck. Garruk, Primal Hunter can be a source of lots of card draw in a deck with such a large general. Garruk Wildspeaker can help you ramp, and his -4 is deadly alongside Avenger of Zendikar. Chandra the Firebrand can be used to copy ramp spells for explosive starts, her -6 for removal. Sarkhan Vol can give a creature haste, steal an opponents threat for the turn, or get you a bunch of dragons.
There are plenty of other cards you can try out in either deck, experiment until you find cards you like!
Illusionists Bracers equipped to Borborygmos will effectively double the damage dealt from each land you discard. It also works wonderfully with Kiki-Jiki. If you deck is playing any more creatures with activated abilities, definitely consider the Bracers.
Grafted Exoskeleton is abusable by any general with direct damage, and Borborygmos is no different. A lot of people hate this card, and will often attack you first just knowing it is in your deck. Be careful though, as the only source of infect, if you don't kill someone the turn you play it and it gets blown up, any infect damage you do before the Grafted Exoskeleton gets blown up with effectively be pointless.

I hope you enjoyed this journey through deck creation, and hope it was a bit different from the usual deck list posts.